(CNN) — Monday is my last day at CNN.com, so it’s a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned as religion editor here these past three years.

The CNN Belief Blog will continue to go strong under the leadership of Eric Marrapodi, with whom I’ve been lucky to co-edit the blog since 2010. I’m off to National Geographic, where I’ll be director of digital news.

Five things I’ve learned as religion editor at CNN.com:

1.) The faith/meaning angles off breaking news can yield meaningful, important stories — even when it feels a little weird to do them. The recent Newtown school massacre offers a case in point: We wrote about people grappling with the question “Where was God?” in the tragedy’s aftermath on the same day the shooting happened. The approach might have been dismissed as “fluffy” in other newsrooms (and one…